Sometimes, in the routine of farm work, when we face a problem that is not usual in our management we tend to think of new and somewhat complicated causes, but surely possible if we consult a manual or the encyclopedia of this century: Wikipedia.
Experience says that before looking for unusual reasons, it would be advisable to review the basics and make sure that those routines we take for granted that work “as usual” are not causing any problems.
With this hypothesis, I am suggesting that something we often assume that cannot influence our production, instead may be an important and decisive element. As it can be water.
We must assume that a large amount of water is used on our farms, so its influence is enormous.
We must not forget that its composition varies practically every day, depending on multiple factors, two fundamental aspects being decisive:
Quantity
Quality
WATER QUANTITY
When we talk about quantity, we have to control two parameters:
Supply
Supply is a decisive factor since we started the project in our farm. We must have a source that guarantees the contribution to our daily work and regulations are required to have enough reserve in case of supply cuts.
We have to be careful and supervise our reserves because there can be periods of drought that can disrupt our plans and we may have to ration the water supply in certain farm areas.
It is advisable to have a B plan in case there is a lack of water supply
Consumption
Another aspect to control with respect to the amount of water is the consumed volume, especially nowadays when we want to control and measure as much parameters as possible, collecting data and interpreting the results.
It is curious that there are still farms that do not have a flow meter at the entrance of the farm to know what is their daily consumption. Knowing this data is very simple and the amount of information it can provide is very important.
The information on our daily consumption allows us to make forecasts in order to manage our reserves, but it can also alert regarding a problem, as its variation is a sign that something out of the ordinary is happening.
Higher consumption
If on arrival at the farm and we see that water consumption is higher than normal, it is very likely that we will have some water leakage, with the cost of the product and its future management as a by-product.
Lower consumption
If the volume consumed is lower, it is most likely that a pathological process is beginnin...
